It is fall and even though we live in a house on a small urban-sized lot, we thankfully have a lot of trees, both in our yard as well as in the neighborhood as a whole. We may get a lot of rain in Seattle but the upside is that green things will grow, and grow, and often cannot be stopped from growing. During this time of year, when the leaves fall and our yards and sidewalks are covered in gorgeous reds, yellows, and oranges, this is the time of year that most assuredly, most viciously, drives my next door neighbor BAT POO POO NUTBALLS inside, although she is too mild mannered to show it.

For the most part, I love my next door neighbor, Maria. Maria is a sweet, kind elderly lady who wears smart hats and waves hello whenever I walk by. The only thing about Maria is that she is kind of obsessed with having a perfect yard. You should see it. You could eat off that shit. She sweeps her sidewalk and porch every day, often more than once a day. She has a landscaper come and make sure everything is trimmed, clipped, mowed, shaped, licked, frosted, cherry on top, amen. I have seen Maria literally move small rocks into more of a uniform line on her ground. To be honest I am quite jealous of that dang yard. Ours is horrible next to hers, and I know that has to pain her something terrible. We often have construction scraps and dirt heaps and all sorts of renovation ugliness everywhere, and we have not invested one bit of attention to our yard because of it. It really is terrible, and I feel bad for Maria about it. I only can say in our defense that some day, I know, for sure, that we will have a passable yard too, once we get to that project on the project list. That day, however, is not today. And it burns Maria to a crisp, I just know it. How do I know it? Because this is what she does. She comes out of her house, and she sweeps the leaves on her porch, collects them, and puts them in a yard waste bag. Then she sweeps off her sidewalk, collects the leaves, and puts them in a yard waste bag. Then she sweeps our sidewalk, collects the leaves, and piles them onto the bottom of our entry stairs. And then she sweeps a little ways down our street, and collects the leaves, and piles those onto the bottom of our entry stairs. So. When we come home after work, our side of the street will be totally pristine, except for the fact that there will be a pile of leaves, sometimes as many as 5 steps deep of our entryway, piled up, waiting for us. If you try to walk through it (which is mostly what we do because we have just gotten home from work and it is dark), you cannot judge where the steps are and so you are likely to misjudge and maybe if your name is ME and you tend to be wearing heels you may or may not completely or almost completely bite it which is a hell of a way to be greeted by your front steps each day. I do not know what Maria is saying to us with this gesture. Is she genuinely trying to be helpful? Here, I have swept up all of the leaves and made a lovely pile so as to make it easy for you to collect and put in your own goddamn yard waste you effing slovenly hovel-owning kids. Or is Maria trying to murder us via our own detritus? You will not sweep your shit up so you must DIE, DIE, DIE! I do not know.

The days are getting noticeably shorter- I leave for work when it's still dark outside. It's getting rainier now too, which means that I have entered the Cozy Times. The Cozy Times are like the End Times, in that they both require hunkering down and hoarding food items and eschewing sociability because Going Outside Times are over. I have always been particularly prone to succumbing fully to the Cozy Times, what with my love for reading and blankets and watching the teevee and having good companionship in that dude that seems to be living with me, so I have to make sure I put some things on my calendar here and there so as not to completely submerge for too long. The problem I foresee with this as time goes on is that as we fix up our house more and more, it only feeds the Cozy Times monster. Our house is getting a little bit nicer and so why would we ever leave it again? I am asking.

After a Friday night dinner out with friends (where I ordered a drink called "Bollywood 411" which, I don't know, cute or ridiculous?), a Saturday at Delium's house where Nordic Boy inducted everyone into the society of how to install ductwork (get it I said inducted about ducting haaaa), we woke up on Sunday, went out for a quick breakfast (at a place where the waitstaff were Halloween costumed as the 4 ladies from The Golden Girls- our waiter was Dorothy) and then hightailed it home and vowed to not break the homebound coziness seal for the rest of the day. We read, we watched movies, Delium stopped by, I baked, Nordic Boy cooked a delicious three-course Indian dinner, we changed our sheets to flannel, we talked and talked. Why do I need to leave my house again? There's a world out there to see and experience? And other people? Are you sure? It seems pretty good in here.

Lightning round of what I've been doing: I got a bad haircut, I did budget stuff at work one day that caused me to dream IN MATH that night, a hipster hit on me (maybe for my bad haircut? A possible hipster siren song) but I couldn't tell if he was joking or not, I bought plane tickets to Michigan that cost me lots of hundies, and my city has been totally engulfed in thick spooky fog.

It was my birthday last week. The first birthday of my whole life without my dad. As the day approached, I felt more and more dread about it, and honestly I just didn't even want it to happen. People had started to ask me about what I would like to do this year, and my responses ranged from "whateverIdon'tknowIjust...[trailing off]" to "NOT FEELING IT DO NOT TALK ABOUT IT" to "nothing. I guess? I don't know. Something?" It was a lovely soup of confusing messages. Luckily, I have people in my life who know how to cut through the baloney talk (I am currently fluent in baloney talk) and know that it really doesn't matter what the venue- a party, a quiet evening, a home-cooked meal- what I really needed was a reminder that I am loved. Nordic Boy and the gang proceeded to ignore my weird mumblings and be bossy about the whole thing and orchestrated several birthday activities for me. Thank goodness. Here are some of the things that got cooked up.

A small group of my favorite Seattle pals gathered up for a fancy meal in a fancy restaurant. We got a private room in the back (sitting in the back rooms of restaurants feels like the mafia, only without the impending threat of violence), and ate up. The restaurant could not have been more tasty and the people running that restaurant were de-fricking-lightful. They gave us free bottles of Prosecco all around and the best, most warm service. Afterwards we went back to my house and we had cupcakes and there were presents and everyone sang to me and is there anything more awkward than having the birthday song being sung to you, but I loved it because what are friends for if not to embarrass you with their love for you.

My friends Alli and Map, in their lifelong tradition of showing up at my door whenever I need them no matter what, both flew to Seattle for a long weekend which was so, so lovely of them. I love those girls so much, I can't even tell you. I boohoo-ed a little bit with Alli the first day that she arrived, just talking about all my FEEEEEEEELINGS, but then Friday and Saturday I did not get teary once, you guys. The thing is that I have gotten weepy at least once a day, every day, for the past 5 months. A non-crying day is kind of a big deal these days, and those girls made it happen. How? Example: there was a point in the weekend where one of them yelled out in confusion "What the FUCK is a pudenda and do I have one?" and how can you be sad when that is being yelled at you? You cannot.

Nordic Boy took me out to dinner one night and to a ballet show afterward. The show was three pieces by Twyla Tharp and one of them is a classic of hers that is set to a series of Frank Sinatra songs. Those songs are so common to our ears because Sinatra is so iconic and they are everywhere- in movies, in ads, whatever-- it's almost like I don't really hear the songs anymore. The show made me really listen to a lot of it in a way I hadn't for a while, and hey, news flash, they are pretty much great songs. I am just only now discovering this, because I am super ahead of the times. I was watching the ballet, and the song "Strangers in the Night" came on, and is there a song that seems more corny than that song? But dudes. It is not corny, is what I sat there and realized. Maybe it was the song, maybe it was the dance, maybe it was the night, maybe it is the mood I have been in. It made me think about how well I am loved. I looked over at Nordic Boy. He was already looking at me.